Computer mice are one of the most essential and useful devices in using computers and devices. Most of the users don’t use it in a useful manner and also can’t take full advantage of it. There are lots of shortcuts and secrets for using the mouse which you might not know. Here is an interesting guide on Windows 7/8 mouse shortcut that will help you to increase your productivity while using your device in Windows 7 and Windows 8 OSes. Let’s explore these interesting Windows 8 mouse shortcuts now (comment on if you know other interesting mouse shortcuts.)
Shift key and mouse click:
A lot of text editors such as MS Word, notepad, word pad, Adobe writer, Linux/Unix pico and other programs allows user to highlight the portion of text using the Shift key and the mouse. Example: Click and release the cursor at the beginning of a paragraph, press the Shift key and click at the end of the paragraph to highlight the full paragraph.
Double and triple click:
If you have to select a word from the text for correction or any other purpose, you can simply select it by double clicking the word. The whole paragraph can be highlighted by triple clicking (clicking the mouse button three times quickly) any text in the paragraph.
Right-click:
Must be the most used and we all know shortcut. It can be used to view the properties of an object. Example: When you highlight a text or file, you can right click that highlighted item, copy it and then right click anywhere else to paste it.
If you highlight on any text or file and drag it by holding the right button, and when you let go then a option will come to paste, move, link it and create a hyperlink. This saves the time for extra step of having reach to your keyboard for CTRL+V.
While you are surfing internet in browser, you can open a link in a new tab by pressing CTRL and clicking at same time for the link you want to open in a new tab.
Scroll wheel:
Almost all the users are well familiar of mouse wheels ability to scroll up and down on a page. But, they are unaware about its other tasks. Example: The wheel of the mouse can be also used as a button. The button can be used to open web page in a tab by clicking the wheel on any link.
The scroll button helps to quickly zoom in and out in a webpage, folder, document and the rest by holding CTRL key and scrolling up for zoom in and scroll down for zoom out.
It also helps to move forward and backward in the webpage by pressing Shift key and scrolling up and down. Scrolling down goes back page and scroll up goes forward page.
Ctrl key and mouse click:
You can select or multiple objects or highlight multiple parts of text by pressing CTRL and left click. Example: You can select multiple files at once by this method. You can also highlight different sections of a paragraph at once.
Mozilla Firefox users can also press down the Ctrl key and individually click on each cell in a table they wish to copy or drag their mouse down a row to select just that row or text without selecting any of the other text in that table.
Mouse side button:
These days we can find mouse with an additional button on the left lower side of the mouse which is named left thumb button. It functions to go back on a web page. But it can also be programmed to do various other activities like opening calculator.
Windows Snap To feature:
This feature of Windows is very useful which will automatically moves the mouse cursor to the options that appear in dialog box. Example: When you delete a file, window asks if you sure want to delete the file then the mouse cursor automatically moves to OK button so you can click it if you agree. This is very time saving process. But you have to make sure the “Snap To” function is enabled. To enable this feature…
- Open Mouse Properties (Mouse Setting) under Control Panel
- Tick the Snap To box under the Pointer Options Tab
Manage the open window by mouse:
Double click on the top title bar of any window to maximize it or restore down and resize it. You can cascade the windows and arrange them side by side by simply dragging them to left, right.
Move Mouse by keyboard:
If your mouse gets damage then you don’t have to stay without using you computer because keyboard also can function as mouse. For laptop user it isn’t a problem as they have inbuilt tracking pad but a computer user doesn’t have that facility. You can use the number pad in keyboard to move the mouse cursor. Initially enable Windows to use the number pad as a mouse. You can enable it by…
- Go to Control Panel settings
- Click Accessibility Options or Ease of Access
- Click Mouse tab and tick “Use mouse Keys” apply and close.
After following above steps you will be able to use numeric keypad as a mouse. But see the “Setup Mouse Keys” option for changing its other settings like its speed and keyboard shortcuts etc.
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